INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT OF FINNISH HIGHER EDUCATION PERSONNEL

International competencies are directly tied to the European agenda of promoting international higher education [1]. Cultural diversity is understood to bring new ideas, methods of working and thinking, and developing multicultural awareness is one of the main purposes of international education. Internationalization at home understands intercultural education is a vivid and dynamic lifelong development process that goes beyond student and teacher mobility, it is an inherent part of how an educational organization embodies the values of lifelong learning, not only of the students, but of the staff and the teachers. In the modern academic world, intercultural intelligence should be part of the basic skill competence of students, staff and teachers and it should be valued as important and natural. However, intercultural competence in education has been underestimated with respect to staff and teacher development.

This study exams how intercultural intelligence is understood in a Finnish University of Applied Sciences and aims at developing a pilot for creating a staff and teacher development program as part of the institution’s ongoing pedagogical development processes. The study combines student feedback, a teacher and staff survey, and a personal profile instrument of selected personnel in order to provide specific recommendations for developing the pilot training program. The study emphasizes the divergence between the strategic rhetoric and the organizational reality and provides recommendations for development of collaborative mentoring and how to understand organizational support.

References:[1] Deardorff, D., K. (2004). The Identification and Assessment of Intercultural Competence as a Student Outcome of Internationalisation at Institutions of Higher Education in the United States. Department of Adult and Community College Education. North Carolina. USA. [referenced 01.02.2015]. Available in: http://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/ir/bitstream/1840.16/5733/1/etd.pdf